Experts: US Midterm Elections 2018

News

Here are McGill professors and researchers that are available to comment on the upcoming 2018 US midterm elections on November 6, 2018:

Jason Opal, Professor, Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University

"These mid-term elections are the last best chance for the majority of Americans who do not support Mr. Trump to slow down his consolidation of power. In lieu of a clear and resounding defeat, Mr. Trump will move quickly to dismantle the remains of Obamacare before moving into the core agreements of the 20th century, including Social Security and Medicare. In addition, this election will be the biggest test in generations of voting rights and restrictions in the US."
—Jason Opal

He's interested in issues of immigration, race, and nationalism. Jason M. Opal studies colonial North America, the American Revolution, and the early decades of the United States. His work tries to integrate social, cultural, and intellectual history and to shed light on such broad topics as nationalism, capitalism, and democracy. He's the author of Avenging the People: Andrew Jackson, the Rule of Law, and the American Nation published in 2017 by Oxford University Press.

"This election will be especially interesting in terms of the importance that voters will end up giving to the Trump administration's behaviour and actions earlier this fall, and whether this will differ from the widespread dissatisfaction that characterized the previous months."
—Simon Langlois-Bertrand

Simon Langlois-Bertrand teaches US Politics classes at McGill University. Passionate teacher with degrees in international affairs, political science, as well as engineering, his work experience has brought him to conduct research on a variety of topics related to US politics, including energy and environmental policy and politics, interest groups, and foreign policy.

“As many observers have noted, this election will be a referendum on the Trump presidency, even if the president himself is not on the ballot. But it will also be a referendum on how best to respond to the Trump presidency. So far, the Democrats have been split, with some candidates positioning themselves as the moderate, centrist “voice of reason,” while others have responded by moving to the left, voicing a more full-throated, robust progressive vision. Although polling and recent social mobilizations in so-called “red states” suggest that Republican congressional majorities are far from safe, it is not at all clear that the “Blue Wave” for which Democrats are hoping is materializing. Regardless of the outcome, we can expect significant political shifts in the election’s aftermath.”—Barry Eidlin

Barry Eidlin is interested in the study of class, politics, inequality, and social change. More specifically, his research explores the changing relationship between social mobilization, political processes, and ideology in advanced capitalist democracies.

He is an international legal scholar, author, and researcher specialized in the areas of international, constitutional, and human rights law with academic and professional background in the United States, Canada, France, Italy and Latin America. He has been invited lecturer at Yale and McGill Universities as well as invited panelist at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Ottawa, and National University of Singapore.

He can comment on the immigration debate and the Supreme court appointment, among other things.